Flooded Houston-area homeowners might have been spared ruin — but only if they read the fine print

They sat tucked away in a Fort Bend county clerk’s file for the past two decades: 25 words on a public document that could have spared thousands of homeowners from losing everything.

If only the homeowners had seen them.

In the finest of fine print, the county warned in 1997: “This subdivision is adjacent to the Barker Reservoir and is subject to extended controlled inundation under the management of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”